


Of Grief and Glory

by SenEolas



Category: Irish Mythology, Táin Bó Cúailnge, Ulster Cycle
Genre: Except For The Ones Who Are Dead, Grief, Trauma, everybody is sad, sadfic, set immediately after the táin, they're just dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:33:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25616677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SenEolas/pseuds/SenEolas
Summary: Cú Chulainn deals with the aftermath of the Táin.CW for grief, something that could be called suicidal ideation, and general Sad Vibes.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 19





	Of Grief and Glory

They don’t talk about the aftermath.

It isn’t part of the stories or the songs, isn’t commemorated in the landscape. They don’t name rivers after the place where you broke down and wept or the place where your only friend, your brother, picked you up and helped you stumble away. No standing stones commemorate the nightmares.

And nobody warned you. Nobody said, _when it’s over you’ll have to live with the blood._ They said, _a short life but a glorious one._

You weren’t supposed to have an aftermath, because you never expected to live through this.

But you did, so now… now you live with the fact that he’s dead, with the memory of his blood bubbling up like kisses on his lips as he blamed you for all of it. Now you live with the knowledge that your peers are dead – all of them, a generation lost, a province devastated. They say it isn’t your fault, but you can’t see how it’s anybody else’s. You couldn’t fight, so they did, and they died, and now the youth of Ulster are gone.

Now you live in a world without your foster brothers and you try to pretend you think it was worth it but it wasn’t, none of this was worth anything, it’s not like anyone even got the damn bull, and you’re –

– you’re so tired.

You weren’t meant to live through this.

 _A short life._ It already feels too long.

So Láeg, who is all you have left, he picks you up every time you stumble, and you hate him a little bit for his part in all of this and for the fact that he didn’t stop you but you hate yourself more for dragging him into it. You let him lead you away, start the slow journey north to where Emer waits for you to come home.

She’s glad you survived. She welcomes you home with tears and kisses and she washes away the blood and binds your wounds and sits by your side as you lie in bed and you try to be glad with her, or at least grateful, but it takes more energy than you have.

How many dead? Too many, on both sides. Ulster won’t easily recover from the loss of the youths. When the old warriors die, who takes their place? Nobody, because they’re dead. You’re the only young one left, and you feel a thousand years old.

You let Emer’s fingers in your hair lull you into sleep.

A part of you hopes you never wake.

*

Gradually you heal. Your body knits itself together again. You remember how to sleep; the nightmares ease. You still wake gasping sometimes, to find Láeg or Emer at your bedside, clutching your flailing hands to remind you of your skin, its edges, the fact that you’re alive.

You try not to hate them for that, either.

Always you have sought glory; always you have sought to be a hero. But they will remember you for this, your lonely stand at the fords, and – and that should be enough. So what now? You have nothing left to be, nothing left to prove, and they told you, they said, they _promised_ a short life so why are you still alive? Why, when mountains like Fer Diad have been rendered shades by your own hand – why, when you are the last of a lost generation and you will never have peers and you will never have equals?

You were supposed to die. Nobody told you how to be a hero _afterwards_ and perhaps that’s because you can’t, when you know what it costs.

“We could go away,” says Láeg, at your side while Emer sleeps. He leans his head against the foot of your bed, legs stretched out in front of him on the floor. “Leave Ulster to its own devices for a while. You’ve done enough.”

“And go where?” you ask him.

He shrugs. “Anywhere. Leinster. Alba. The Tyrrhenian Sea. Set off and keep going until we find somewhere we actually want to stop. Emer would come with us.”

You sag back against the bedding. “I couldn’t do that to her.”

“You think she wants this?” says Láeg. “A quiet life, a homestead? She wouldn’t have married you if that was all she was looking for. She would come, little Hound, if you asked her.” 

“I couldn’t do that to her,” you repeat, but it lacks conviction. For a moment you let yourself believe that Láeg is right, that you _could_ just leave. But this will follow you, like the scars on your skin. There are more of them now. The biggest is a twisted knot of scar tissue just inches from your heart, where Fer Diad left his mark.

Almost your heart, but not quite.

“We could go to Scáthach,” he says.

“Why, so I can ask her why she gave me the gae bolga?” The words rip themselves from your throat, all violence. “Shall I ask her if she saw this coming? Ask if this is what she wanted? _She_ is the reason Fer Diad is dead, Láeg, her and her tricks and her—”

“No,” he interrupts softly, “she isn’t. You are.”

He is ever the gentlest of murderers. You feel his words digging deep. “Láeg…”

“Hiding in bed won’t bring him back. Or Lóch, or Fer Baeth, or Fráech, or—”

“I _know_.”

“Then how long do you plan to stay here?”

You turn your face away from him, look up at the roof above you, losing yourself in the spirals of its weave. Finally you say, “Until I believe in glory again.”

He lets his head fall back against the end of the bed, a soft thunk against the wood. “Then we’ll be here until the hills are valleys and the seas are dry, little Hound.”

You can make no argument with that. You close your eyes and say, “You don’t have to stay.”

“If you think you can send me away, you’re mistaken.”

“And if I told you I didn’t want you here?”

Silence, so long you wonder if he’ll answer you at all. Then: “That sounds like your problem, not mine,” and maybe you smile a little, into the semidarkness, the muscles stiff from disuse.

 _You deserved better, Láeg,_ you think, but you can’t say it, not when he is all you have left, the only brother still loyal and living and _there._

“We could go to your mother,” you say instead. “To Síd Truim. Back to the beginning.”

“We could,” he agrees. “But somehow I don’t think that’s what you want.”

It isn’t and it is. You want to crawl back into the skin of your younger self, recapture your dreams of heroism, remember what it felt like to crave the fight. You want the belief that it will be worth the cost, the faith that it will earn you your place, instead of this: this knowledge that you will always be the outsider, out in the crossing-places like an outlaw. But you know, too, that glory was always to be bought with blood, and that you would think no more of it if it weren’t – if it hadn’t been – if Fer Diad…

 _All play, all sport._ You trace the scar beside your heart. Wonder what would have happened if it had connected. If it would actually have been able to kill you, or if the gods of your people would have kept you alive until they are ready to let you die.

“There’s more to come yet,” says Láeg. “More stories to tell. More feats, more deeds, more glory.”

“How,” you say bitterly, “when I have already killed my foster brothers.”

“Not all tales are of war.”

You roll over then, putting your back to him. “Leave me be, Láeg. I don’t need a nursemaid.”

“I would believe that if you weren’t acting like a child.” His voice has edges now, and it surprises you. “You are not the only one mourning, Cú Chulainn. The whole province has lost its young ones, and Connacht its champions, and the landscape bears vicious scars from this fighting. And we have all lost people. Or do you forget that I knew Fer Diad once, and loved him too? Do you forget that your brothers were mine?”

“You didn’t kill them.”

“No. I have all of the grief, none of the glory. At least you have your feats of arms to show for your losses.” He pushes himself up; you hear his knees click as he stands, and then the sound of his footsteps on the hard-packed floor. “The province praises your name even while they weep for their lost children. Maybe you should show your face and claim the hero’s portion while it’s still yours to claim.”

You don’t reply. He waits a moment, and then he leaves, and now – for the first time – you are truly alone.

You will kill him too, one day. Heroes trail death like stories; of course he will get caught up in it. And you would have him live but that you’re too selfish to let him go.

He’s right, though. This is no champion’s behaviour, to skulk like a coward as though there is room for regret in defending your homeland. You should be crowing from the hillsides about your victories, and the fact that these stories will be told until the sky falls.

 _All play, all sport._ Mourning will not bring Fer Diad back, or make his death mean something. It is a bloody game that is lost but it’s a game all the same, and you limped from the field the winner.

Tomorrow, then. Tomorrow you will get up, tomorrow you will play the hero, tomorrow you will begin to spin another story.

But you will give yourself one more night to mourn, because even in a short life, there is time for sorrow, and even in glory, there is grief.


End file.
